Reality Check campaign

Discover the Reality Check campaign and what GNDR did at the 3rd WCDRR at Sendai 14-18 March 2015.

Will the Post-2015 DRR Framework make an impact at the frontline? It’s time for a Reality Check!

Resilient communities are the building blocks of resilient nations. Without effectively building resilience at the local level, national targets cannot be met. It is therefore critical to ensure that the Post-2015 DRR Framework has an impact at the local level. However, Views from the Frontline has shown that there is currently an implementation gap between national DRR policies and local level practices on the ground. Why? Policies and plans do not take into account real life at the frontline. We need a Reality Check.

What is real life? Real life at the frontline means dealing with unrecognised everyday disasters and interrelated risks compounded by insecurity, poverty and informality. 90% of disasters identified by respondents are 'everyday disasters' according to Frontline, a new study conducted by GNDR in Latin America. Communities were asked about their perceptions of the threats they face and the consequences. Most of the disasters prioritised are small scale and recurrent and the result of environmental, economic, social and political threats. However, these everyday disasters are largely unacknowledged and unrecorded, and communities are usually left to fend for themselves. Further:

These disasters do not impact everyone equally - 95% of people killed by disasters are from developing countries, and women, children and the elderly suffer the greatest disaster losses.

These disasters take place in complex contexts. More than 50% of people affected by natural disasters live in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

Civil society can play a critical role in ensuring real life at the frontline is taken into account. GNDR therefore wants to see an increased role of civil society in the implementation and monitoring of the Post-2015 Framework. Towards this aim, GNDR is launching our Reality Check campaign, which will be introduced at the Third UN Word Conference for DRR (WCDRR) in Sendai, 14-18th March 2015.

Keep reading and learn how you can participate in this global campaign!!

What specific roles can CSOs play in ensuring impact at the frontline in the implementation of the Post-2015 DRR Framework? Read about our Civil Society Implementation Plan and share activities you can do!

Read about the launch of Frontline, a global participatory action research programme of work that gathers local risk knowledge and priorities that can be used for risk profiling and monitoring.

GNDR are running and contributing to a number of sessions at the WCDRR, and during these we will be promoting our Reality Check messages. Find out more about the time, venues and agenda for these sessions.

Join and participate in GNDR members campaigns, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. about what you will be doing around Sendai, so we can share it with the rest of GNDR members.

Follow the conversation online on Twitter and Facebook and take part in it by using the hashtag #GNDRrealitycheck in your tweets and facebook posts.